Sales Science – Implications Journal

by Giovanni Alberto Brass, Pastel Hour Founder and CEO, Prassfood Asset Management

As I told you in my introductory column, I worked for many years in the commercial field, an experience that has led me to analyze the evolution of this sector increasingly and that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Without a doubt, commercials are the driving force behind all businesses and the great organization of this art as data science is remarkable. Yes, selling is an art! This art today has important indicators and I want to bring some of them today: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Retention, Recurrence and Lifetime Value (LTV).

CAC is undoubtedly one of the main indicators to look at in the marketing and sales sector, as it also contributes in the financial field. CAC is the amount you pay for each sale, because yes, every sale made in all businesses has a cost and should be well analyzed. Not every sale is a good sale and it should make sense in the company’s strategy.

Another important indicator is retention, we will now see why this is important. If we were to make an analogy, CAC and keep would be like Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, Bebeto and Romario, the two pointers are closely related. Did you know that getting a new customer costs 5-25 times more than keeping an existing customer? Take care and keep your customer base, there is no point in having low CAC and low retention.

Repetition, although similar to retention, does not have the same objective in the analysis, this indicator is complementary to the previous two indicators. Here, the number of times a customer purchases in a period, the length of time between purchases, etc. is analyzed. Knowing your customer’s profile and habits is an excellent tool for increasing your sales.

Now we will talk about LTV or Lifetime Value, which is one of the main elements to analyze, as it relates to the amount of money the customer spends and the time they spend from your company or using your platform/application. In short, LTV is another very complementary indicator, considering there is good retention and high repeatability, without a doubt we will have a high value for life, which is the goal of any company.

Selling is an art and perhaps one of the oldest arts in history. However, we always need to sharpen the axe and the commercial sector is doing it with indicators and data science. Track your metrics, take care of customers and get creative with sales. Selling art! Selling knowledge!